


Cream

by beaubete, xphil98197



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Bond WIP Amnesty, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 09:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11414901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete, https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphil98197/pseuds/xphil98197
Summary: Bond and Q keep meeting at the coffee shop around the corner from Six.





	Cream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xphil98197](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphil98197/gifts).



> Hurrah! I've finally finished my fic for the Bond fandom WIP Amnesty! My deepest apologies to my co-creator, xphil98197, who has been so tremendously patient with me. Their prompt was an absolute blast to work with, and while I tweaked and rewrote much of it, Avery and most of the good lines belong to them.

Rain splatters against the sill of the open window, little drips peppering Bond’s leg as he lies in bed listening.  London in the rain sounds soft; even when it’s raining buckets, the harshness of traffic is rounded, gentled.  The birds are quiet.  There are none of the usual sounds of the city—just the shushing hiss of rain.  Another person might be lulled to sleep by this, but Bond’s brain whirls.

His hotel room is little more than a bed sit, and powdered coffee lacks appeal.  Nothing for it, then.  There’s an all-night cafe near work, he knows, that the boffins love; he’s been away long enough that London feels estranged, a lover familiar and distant—he can’t at the moment think of another place to go.  It’s as much desperation as anything else that drives him to his feet and into the battered leather jacket that hangs from the back of his front door.

It’s not yet early enough that the bankers are filing into their offices; Bond finds a cab by sole virtue of having a concierge, and the silence in the back seat is sullen, broken only by the waves of rain as they sweep across the cab’s roof.  There are no other cabs on the road, no pedestrians in the inky black, not even drunks staggering home from the pub or commuters sneaking in before the daily rush.  This is London’s true witching hour—not a soul to save him from his own pensive thoughts.

The coffee shop is a beacon in the grey pre-dawn London light.  Bond’s half-conscious mind spins threads of mists parting and other ridiculous twaddle, but there’s something fantastic about the rich smell of coffee—freshly ground, judging by the depth of it—when he opens the door.  He’s not quite soaked through, but it’s a near thing; his umbrella drips against his leg until he spots the stand.  There’s something quirky about this place, not quite as corporate as all the Prets and Starbucks and Costas.  It’s been here as long as Six has been across the bridge, perhaps even longer, and it’s been as much a rite of passage as anything else for junior agents to try to organise a drop here.  It’s beloved, familiar, safe—and most importantly, open all times of the day and night.  

Today, Bond is the only guest this early; the shop girl pokes her head through the door to the kitchen, shouts something about muffins, and disappears into the back.  When she comes back, she’s dusted in flour from knees to elbows, white flecks somehow caught in her short, spiked hair.  “What’ll you have, then?”  Businesslike, but not brusque; she’s as deft at reading her customers as any agent, then.  Bond finds himself warming to her despite himself.

“Coffee, black.”

“Americano?”

“Drip’s fine.”

“Be a mo’.  Haven’t turned the machine on yet; sure you don’t want the other?  Single-serve doesn’t take as long to get going, and I’ll give it to you for the same price,” she offers.

“If that’s easier,” Bond agrees.

The shop girl is a bundle of energy; as soon as the mug is pressed into his hands—she doesn’t wait for payment, but then where would he go at half three in the pouring rain?—she’s off into the depths of the kitchens again.  Each time she bustles in or out, sweet, bready smells follow until Bond’s stomach rumbles.  It’s not quite enough to lift his spirits, being here, but nearly so.

Somewhere past four, the bell over the door jangles and the only other person Bond’s seen on the street since arriving steps in.  Q’s drenched to the skin, shirt damp and dark and clinging with wet.  He hasn’t noticed Bond yet, mouth rueful as he folds back his umbrella and tucks it into the stand beside Bond’s.  It’s then that he looks up.

“Bond?”

“Q!”  The shop girl’s arms are full of a tray of muffins, and the metal clatters against the top of the display case as she rushes past the register to tut in dismay.  “You’re dripping on my floors!”

“Pissing rain,” Q agrees genially.  “Can you get me a quad shot and a builder’s to go?  Lots of sugar, if you would.”

The girl frowns.  “It’s not good for you, you know.  You’ll start to actually look your age.”

Q’s laugh at that is bright, despite the gloom outside.  “I’ve got an early morning.  M’s going to skin me alive if I don’t get that prototype done before the budget meeting.”

“The prototype M doesn’t know about yet?” she asks, tone skeptical.

“Yes.  If I have to include it in my projected budget, he’ll skin me when he sees how much the bloody thing cost.”  Q’s response is blithe, but Bond’s blood runs cold.  

The girl laughs.  “You’ll have to wait a mo’.  I’ve got streusel in the oven, and if I leave it much longer it’ll burn.”

“Go, do,” Q tells her with shooing motions.  

Once the door’s swung shut behind her, Q drops into the seat across from Bond gustily.  “Avery thinks I work for a product development team as part of a subsection of a local security company.  She’s not wrong, in many aspects.  You can shake that sour look off your face, Bond.  We were thinking of hiring her—I was thinking of hiring her—as soon as she finishes her degree.  I’ve had eyes on her for a few years, and our files on her go further back than that.  Some day, and soon I hope, she’ll be working to replace all those guns you keep losing.”

“I’ve never heard a prospect discussing business so openly.  She’s aware?”

“Of course not.”

“This rain, yeah?”  There’s something to be said for Avery: she has an agent’s timing.  She’s careful as she peels the streusel-topped muffins from her pan and places them one by one in the display case.  “R in today?”  It’s practiced in its casualness.

“She is,” Q agrees, “but not ‘til 8.  I can keep it safe, but it won’t be warm.  Shall I send her your way instead?”  Avery goes pink and lifts her tray, murmuring “nooooooooooo” as she disappears into the kitchen.  Q’s grin is wide.  

“So what are you doing here?” Q asks.  Bond shrugs.

“Couldn’t sleep.  Lightning, summer heat, etcetera and so forth.  Don’t like my hotel room and don’t want to go to work this early.  You shouldn’t, either—you’re more of an after-9er, aren’t you?”

“Usually, yeah, but I’m not lying.  If M sees that new prototype and thinks it’s something to pay for rather than something paid, I’ll get a bollocking.  I’ve been reprimanded twice this quarter for ‘frivolous expenses’.  His words, not mine—I usually refer to them by their line item on the budget: ‘James Bond incidentals’.”

“I am not the reason you are developing a personal propulsion system,” Bond tells him loftily.  

Q’s grin is wicked. “No, you’re not.  Nor will you ever be, because I don’t trust you with it.”  Then:

“The flat above mine is free, if you’re looking.”  Just like Avery’s comment about R, there’s a practised sort of artlessness to it; Q’s fingertips rub at the tabletop so they won’t tap.

“No, perhaps not,” Bond says ruefully.  “The flat in Knightsbridge was such a bloody pain to unload, and if I’m away longer, I don’t want to worry I’ve been uninvited to renew.  They thought I was a tax shelter last time; I was in the place so rarely.”

Q chuckles at that.  “Well, do let me know.  I’ll be happy to sit on your couch and drink your beer if you want me to pretend to live there for you.”

“Ta, Q.”

Avery brings out Q’s order soon and presses a box of muffins into Q’s hand with a flush and a mumbled “on the house” that makes Bond chuckle into his cooled coffee.  Then it’s just him and the quiet shop as Avery bustles back and forth between the kitchen and the counter, filling the display with muffins and scones and biscuits.  By the time the next customer wanders in, the clouds are breaking overhead and the morning’s gone mother of pearl and Bond feels strangely light.

::

It’s nothing so like a habit, but Bond finds himself at the little shop again a few weeks later.  It’s been a day from hell; a long, fruitless mission in Cairo, three junior agents dead, and a flight back through cargo simply because the next available passenger flight hadn’t been until morning.  The city’s still black as sin, and even though Bond has a hotel room where he’s left the detritus of a mission still clinging burning to the back of his eyes, he finds himself in this little oasis of light again.  He’s been there barely twenty minutes when Q staggers in.

Their eyes meet.  He slumps into the seat across from Bond, sighing into his hands.  Avery’s in the back, still baking for the day. Bond pushes his coffee across the table and watches Q drain the black, bitter dregs of it in three solid gulps.  There really isn’t anything to say.  Eventually, Avery comes back, offering tea for Q and a refill for Bond, and when Q takes the coffee, she takes the hint smoothly.  Halfway through his own cup, Q sinks back into the seat, tipping his head back to survey the pressed tin ceiling, the cool grey walls.  He looks like he feels human again.  His smile is brief but real as he slides from the table and hopefully home for sleep.  Bond stays and watches the lives they’ve saved start their morning.

::

Bright peals of laughter.  Bond had actually been heading out this time when Q came in, and now he’s glad he didn’t; Q’s face is lax around his happy laughter, and he can begin to see where Q’s friendship with Avery began now that he can see them interacting when Q is not numb with lack of sleep or grief.

“And he’s—?” Q prods.

“Oh, but he’s done it before; that’s the problem!” Avery crows.  “He just thought, ‘Oh, I know!  I’ll balance myself here on the corner shelf inside the shower over a full bath—’”

“As you do,” Q agrees

“—as you do,” Avery confirms.  “It’s never gone wrong before, aside from that other, only time I tried it.”

“Well, correlation is not causation, of course,” Q reminds her.  “And then the shelf snapped—”

“And then the shelf snapped.  So now I’m looking for suggestions for a replacement that can hold a fatarse cat who weighs a whole stone.”

“I’ll do you one better.  I had to custom build all of mine because Christopher isn’t capable of not climbing every horizontal surface until he’s at the highest point in the room, so I’ll bring you something that’ll work, I promise.”  Q’s eyes are lit with amusement, and Bond feels suddenly warm and safe and happy.  He’s been laughing along with them, and when Q breaks out the photo slideshow of a very annoyed, very damp cat, he slides over to show Bond as well, just as though he had been participating just as well with the conversation.

Eventually he gets a text from Mallory that makes the coffee go sour in his mouth.  He brushes a hand against Q’s shoulder and gets a pat for the concern, then heads out and back to Six.

::

If he considered it, Bond never honestly expected Bahriya to take as long as it did.  A follow up mission—clear up the problems caused by his last foray into Egypt, kill the man still selling stolen weapons despite his partner’s death, turn over the fool of an ambassador’s son who’d been playing at international arms dealership to his equally foolish father—except, of course, like all missions James Bond is attached to, it went tits up.  Eight weeks in the parching desert sun and he’s bedraggled when he returns, haggard and sun-bleached and entirely too exhausted to be of any use anywhere.  Too ragged to get a posh hotel room and sleep it off, and the thought feels like fleas on his skin; too riled to stand the sight of Six right now.

It’s late evening; there are more people in the coffee shop than when he usually arrives, but fewer, he’s sure, than would be if it weren’t half ten in the evening.  The ones that are left are students, looking for a place to caffeinate and study, or singles, either wrapping up dates or waiting for mates before heading into the nearby clubs.  It’s still relatively peaceful.  Quiet.  Bond sinks into a familiar seat with relish.

He isn’t sleeping when the cup of coffee slams down before him; he isn’t, honestly, but he still jumps, eyes flicking open and wary while his hand goes for the empty holster in his armpit.  Avery’s splashed coffee foam on the back of the hand that was resting on the table, and he eyes her as he rubs it off with his handkerchief.

“You’ve got a bloody nerve,” she snaps.

“Hallo, Avery.  Yes, it has been a long time.”

“I told myself I wasn’t going to play favourites if you showed up here again, but I lied.  I absolutely have a favourite, and you’re not it.”

“I’m not many people’s favourite,” Bond agrees easily enough.  Avery’s puffed with indignant righteousness, and all Bond can work out is that something must have happened while he was away.  Eventually the puff goes out of her and she shrinks back to her normal self, if pouty and a bit put out.

“Where on earth have you been?  I could have had a proper yell if you’d shown up a month ago when he was at his worst.”  She picks at the table’s plasticated top.  “Now I’m just relieved you’re not actually dead.”

“Mm,” Bond agrees.  “My modus operandi.”  Then, “He?”

Avery shoots him a dirty look.  “Don’t you try that.”

“Try what?”

“I figured you must have broken up.  Last month?  It was like the whole world had ended.”

Ah.  He’d wondered what it had looked like when they’d carved the tracking device out of his forearm; he has his answer now.  Bond wonders idly if his debit cards still work and whether they’ve ordered the date on his headstone updated again.  His lip curls a bit at the thought; morbid or not, the only grave he ever finds the time to visit is his own.  “No,” he says, and then it sinks in a bit—she’d thought.  

If this were a romance novel, a romantic film, Bond figures, Q would walk in right now.  He’d be tired from his endless efforts to retrieve Bond’s corpse from Africa and his hair would be a mess.  His tie might be askew—it usually is after long cases like this—he might be five o’clock shadow and trembling eyes and bitten lips.  He might make it easy—

They’re not the freshest—Avery almost convinces him to let her whip up a new batch instead, some cupid’s sparkle in her eye as she realises—but he takes what she has, and a streusel for R.  On the books he’s still dead; extradition had taken place on a need-to-know basis, and M’s only words during their brief phone connection had been absolving him of coming in until he’s had a week to rest, but.  Some things can’t last a week.  And some things can last more, if Bond is brave enough to let them.

No one expects him as he comes plowing in.  This late in the day, most of the day shift has gone for the night, but Bond pays them in muffins for their silence.  Lips pursed in bemusement around hazelnut and brown sugar, R only points silently at the quiet corner of the office where Q does most of his tinkering.

The first thing he sees is the pile of dark fluff curled into a circle on the end of the couch.  There’s a cat pan tucked under one of the standing desks; Bond thinks back to all of the stories he’s heard and this is Blue, the little love of Q’s life.  Her back raises and lowers as Q’s fingers idly trace circles on her side and back while he reads from his tablet.  Christopher must be around—ah, on top of the shelf, Bond spies, all tawny fur and eyes slit with proprietary watchfulness.  His tail flicks.  Bond knows him as though he were his own cat.

“He’s after throwing that bin in the floor,” Bond warns, and Q freezes.  Blue perks up, a disgruntled little purring mewl describing her displeasure at the disruption.  She leaps down from the couch and stalks off to the dish of water beside another crate, but Q stays still, frozen.  He doesn’t look up.

“He won’t actually do it,” Q says finally.  Then, “You complete bastard.”

There are a lot of things Bond could do.  He could protest his innocence, could show the scabbed gash where his tracking device was excised, could deny his part in the dark circles under Q’s eyes.  He inclines his head.  

“I.”  There isn’t much to say; Q’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, and Bond can read it clearly.  “—missed you,” Q finally tries, but it’s fake and flat.  He still looks heartbroken.

Bond smiles.  “Would you like to go for coffee with me sometime?”


End file.
